Here we are at the beginning of spring, and while we are in a country in the midst of their school year and poised for springtime frolicking, I cannot, cannot shake the back-to-school feeling. It’s definitely due to many of my much-loved friends from home sharing photos of conkers and their children starting the new (or not-so) adventures of homeschooling and twenty-five years of ingrained September vibes. But I think it’s also due to my end of August baby, who will…

Welcome to spring. I’m so excited to share with you the first in a series of seasonal guides, The Family Collective Guide to Spring. Celebrating and living with the seasons is something that is so important to us as a family, and the ways in which we raise our daughter. We find so much joy in tying our lives to what is happening outside, in creating celebrations and traditions that we plan to rediscover each year. Memories of our daughter are similarly intertwined, the blossoms float in the background as I think of our first park picnics. The world outside is ochre as we chopped apples together to make a cake, small mouse-like nibbles in each and every slice.

I’m returning to our play space series with another room in our little house, the kitchen. The kitchen is actually my favourite room in the house, it gets so much light during the day, there’s actually room for everything we need and its the nicest rental kitchen we have certainly ever had. Saying this, I felt like it was fairly difficult to make child-friendly. We don’t have room (or money) for a learning tower, nor much space for child-accessible areas, but it’s surprised me just how much we could do when I shifted my thinking and worked on it a little…

I thought about sharing this post before Christmas, a mini gift guide of things a one year may like to play with in case you have one in your life. But then I decided that the may in that sentence was actually a little too vague for me. So I decided to wait, and have instead watched Eilish as she played with her newest toys in her collection, until I wrote this, gifts for a sixteen month old that are most definitely played with here anyway.

As the weather has become chillier and wetter, and the days are far darker, it has forced us to stay inside far more, and in turn has given me a big push to sort out the spaces within our home. We moved into our home three days after Eilish was born (the second move within the time of pregnancy), and it was a rush move due to a difficult rental situation and the imminent arrival of a baby. This has meant that it has taken so much time to sort, declutter and really enjoy our home.